A Study in Quiche

My palate is of the wandering sort.  He has ideas of his own.  This night he demanded quiche and the rest of my body conspired to provide it for him.  What can be said of quiche?  It is ham and egg and cheese and cream and onion.  It is the kind of thing I want to cover in every kind of hot sauce, but choose not to because some of life's subtleties are to be respected.  Therein, I find the conflict of want.  I want the hot sauce, and I want the quiche un-sauced.   I want a lot of stuff, but what do I want most of all?  Which wants win, and what does that say about me?

I think about people who say they want to lose weight, and then they choose to watch TV all night and eat chocolate ice creams.  They don't really want to be fit, they want to watch TV.  I think about people who say they want to be rich, and then they choose to blow their money on stupid things.  They don't want to be rich, they want to feel the rush of consumerism.  Most of all I think about people who say they want a relationship and a family but then chase the unavailable, unattainable or incompatible.  They don't want a relationship and a family, they want an illusion.

I am all of these people.  Well, except for the chocolate ice creams guy.  I never buy ice creams, and I don't have a TV.  I don't even have a couch.  I want to change how I think about what it is I want.  When I have a decision, I want to ask myself if I am choosing what I want most.  I think there is power consciously deciding to choose your highest wants.  How great would be to look back at each of your days and think, "I did everything I wanted most today."

This blog sucks, and it is going no where fast.  I'm stopping now.  Sorry.

R

P.S.  Although if you think about it, I want to publish something today more than I want give up and delete the whole thing altogether.  Yeah, I do what I want.

Exploring the Ruins

If I am ever asked to give a commencement address at some graduation for something, this is what I am going to say:

"It is nearly impossible to ruin your life.  It is very easy to waste it."

I've been thinking about this quite a bit over the last few weeks.  I got laid-off.  You know that drill.  It's not that big of a deal because I resolved that it wouldn't ever be.  I am building a dating website, and I am racked by equal parts visions of terror and visions of millions.  I have spent a great deal to get the website to where it is even moderately functional, and I've put it all on my credit card.

You see, I think debt is debt (the corollary being that cash is king).  I've wanted to go to grad school, or law school, or culinary school or some kind of school after which I would be guaranteed a high paying job, job security and therefore happiness.  The problem is that the only thing those schools guarantee is a ton of student loan for me.

I am sitting at a desk in a warehouse as I write this.  The floors are always dusty no matter how many times I sweep.  If my jeans brush the floor as I put them on, they will have dust all over them.  I am 32 years old, single, in debt, unemployed and living in a warehouse.  I don't know about you, but that's not the vision I had for me at 32.  Yet I sit here, and I am resolved to go deeper if necessary and it's because I believe what I said above.

It is nearly impossible to ruin your life.  It is very easy to waste it.

Here is the worst possible scenario I can envision: I can't find a new job, my savings run out, my motorcycle gets repossessed and horror of horror, I have to declare bankruptcy.  Truthfully though, you don't actually ever have to declare bankruptcy.  I read a story about this VC guy I follow(@sacca) who was two million dollars in debt.  He paid it off and now he is a multimillionaire.

We're going to call that whole scenario a pretty small downside.  By pursuing that course I will have learned a ton about starting my own website.  I will have been my own boss, and done everything I could to create a successful business that is uniquely the product of my own brain.  No matter what the outcome is, is that a ruined life?

Nah....

Let's take the flip side.  I take the first job that comes my way, and I work it until it goes under.  Then I take the next job, and the next job.  I can never take a risk.  I can drink my fancy booze and wear fancy pants and retire comfortably someday.  I can never create something of my own. I can have idea after idea that sits idle in my brain.  That seems like less than I am destined for; less than I am capable of.  That seems like a bit of waste, doesn't it?

From the warehouse where I am sitting, failure does not mean ruination.  There is comfort in that.  Not trying seems like a waste.  That scares me.  I know which one of the two I'm going to go for.

I'll be more eloquent when I give this speech to the graduating class of two-thousand something or other.

People will quote me, and retweet me and blog about me.  It'll be great.

Until Then,

R

Aliens and Slipping a Mickie

We don't control our dreams, right?  What are they exactly?  Why do I feel like sometimes my subconscious has an agenda entirely different than I do?

In the last two weeks I have dreamed about Mickie Jo Gibson three separate times.  Mickie was this very cute girl I knew in Junior High and High School.  I was an asshole in Junior High.  I remember telling her she would make a great secretary someday.  She got over it thankfully, and I think our senior year we actually went to the homecoming dance together.  I still remember the red dress she wore.  She was quiet, cute and interesting.  As a guy that gets bored with almost everything, interesting is just about the highest compliment I can ever give to a girl.  And yet, I never even tried to kiss her.  I was an idiot.  We've been over that, right?  After we graduated I went off to college and she joined the military.  I wrote her a few letters, actual hand-written letters, but I never heard back.  That is literally the last time I've ever heard anything about her.  She isn't on Facebook, or at least I can't find her.  A quick Googling of her showed no results either.  I haven't seen or heard anything about her in the last 14 years.

So why in the world have I dreamed about her three times in the last two weeks?

She was always very quiet, and that's how she was in my dream last night.  She ended up at dinner with me and my family and she wasn't saying much.  I knew she wanted to talk to me, and so I bailed on some plans I had later to spend some time with her.  She just shook her head happily.  I was looking forward to talking to her.  The next part of the dream was us running from a city as aliens were destroying it.  We were leaping up the side of a mountain trying to avoid various parts of aliens laying about.  Yes, this is not an uncommon dream thread for me either.

I ask again, then.  What are dreams?  Why do I dream of girls so far gone, and why all the aliens?  I hope they aren't my own subconscious's version of me.  It feels like it might be that sometimes.

Some part of me thinks this is how my subconscious chooses to punish me for my long time inability to go for what I want.  Is such a thing possible?  Can my subconscious have an agenda?  Is it looking out for my best interests, or is it just testing me?  I don't have these answers.

All I know is that when I have these dreams I wake up alone, and I wake up missing.  I wake up knowing I have missed so many opportunities in my life.  I wake up missing the great women I've known.  I wake up missing those simple conversations, those eyes full of desire, and that heart that was so eager to surrender.  It was so simple once.  We were all innocent by experience, and anything but innocent by intention.

How do I reclaim that naive heart, and that aggressive intention?  I don't know.  Maybe it's not possible.  Or maybe next time I see a girl, I just go talk to her.  Maybe then I won't dream of girls so far gone.

Maybe then the aliens of my subconscious will stop destroying the cities in my mind.

Maybe then I will find love again.

R

Big Challenges

I am haunted by the challenges of what I am about to launch. You can look up the stats just about anywhere. The dating site industry isn’t really growing. While it is big business (1.5 – 2 billion annually) most of this revenue goes to a few of the big players. Match.com, eHarmony and Zoosk have massive marketing budgets. A consultant for the online dating industry, David Evans of OnlineDatingPost.com mentions: 

“Online dating has always been and will remain an advertising-based industry. The sites that make a lot of money spend a lot of money. There is no way around this except for extremely few edge cases.” 

I won’t have the kind of budget to compete with those guys. In fact, I probably wouldn’t take money to advertise for my site if it was offered to me. I recently read something pretty funny by James Altucher (www.jamesaltucher.com). He says, “marketing is the gap between the truth and sales.” I wonder if that is true of online dating sites? 

We don’t need marketing to use online bill pay from our bank. We don’t need marketing to use Gmail. We don’t need marketing to know about Facebook or Twitter. These things are natural to us now. I hope therein lies the key difference. I hope that the reason these big sites need to spend so much in marketing is that they are still trying to push something that is pretty unnatural on people who never really settle into the concept. 

Think about it. When you walk into a bar, go to a ball game or a cooking class can you assess all the people in that room in a few minutes? Can you quantify every person’s height, body type (always my favorite! What does ‘a few extra pounds’ even mean?), life goals and personal preferences? Can you know their religion, whether they want children or whether they do yoga? Of course you can’t! Even if you could, could you simultaneously contact all of them? No! You’d know by looking and assessing that some were for you and some weren’t. You’d take your time and try to sidle up to the ones who looked the most promising. That’d be natural. You’d see smiles, and body language. You’d see confidence and shyness. You’d know who was attractive to you. You’d get lost in someone’s eyes. It’s not a numbers game, it’s a compatibility game. That’s how it works in the real world, but that’s not how it works online today. 

I started this site because I wondered something very simple: Are there more out there like me? Are there more out there like my sister and a few of my good friends? Are there people who want to connect with someone in a more natural way than writing paragraphs about themselves or taking a long quiz, surviving the matching algorithm, and adding a few pictures? We’re all good people. We’re all beautiful people in our own way. We just want to highlight how we are in real life and let people connect with that. That should be natural right?

My goal with agreatfirstdate.com is to have it be more like meeting someone, than meeting someone online.

R

Fists and Firsts

The following happened due to a dream. The dream happened because I went to South America a few months ago, and I never quite recovered.  I didn't come back the same.  See, in South America you don't eat dinner until 10 p.m even on the weekdays.  It seems weird, but my body seems to think it natural.  The hours between work and that meal are spent napping.  My body definitely likes that.  I work.  I come home.  I meditate.  I nap.  Tonight, I napped so deeply I found myself in a dream.  I found myself in a nightmare.  After I woke up, and I found myself some trouble.

In this dream, I was cooking on some kind of chef competition.  I was out-classed and I was confused.  The other chefs seemed to know exactly what they were doing.  The cooked and quickly disappeared.  I cooked a few things, but knew I needed to do more.  I couldn't find the rest of the damn proteins.  I found some shredded cabbage and decided I could oven roast it.  I doused it in olive oil and threw the skillet in the oven.  Eventually it came out, and I dumped it on the counter.  It was not appetizing.  Shreds of the cabbage came alive.  They dived towards my feet.  They were insect-like.  They were shrimp-like.  I was wearing loafers and they were burrowing in to my feet.  They had tentacles that extended from their heads and pulled them into my shoes.  I-was-freaking-the-fuck-out.  In the dream, I was able to kick off my shoes and remove the insect-shrimps.  It was 7:34 p.m.  I'd been asleep for an hour and a half.

I awoke disturbed.  If we have no control of our dreams, if we have no control of our minds, what control do we have over our lives?  The conclusion of that line of thinking unfolded over the next three hours.

9:06 p.m.:  I arrive at Williams & Graham.  I come in search of martini.  I come in search of food.  Denver sleeps early on Monday night.  I wanted french onion soup.  The french place was closed.  Williams & Graham was open.  I nestled into a seat at the bar.  On my left was a man reading a book titled 1491.  On my right was a couple on a date.  The man so desperately was trying to impress.  He was a teacher.  It must have been their fourth date.  They'd had sex.  I could tell she was good with it, but she was taking her time for a second round.  I order a martini; a gin martini.  I don't understand gin, but I am trying to learn.  Nick, the bartender carefully prepares my beverage.  It ends with careful squeezes of the lemon rind over my drink.  I count three.  He drops the rind in the glass.

9:07 p.m.:  The kitchen manager is by the corner of the bar.  A waitress, not a bartender, is staring back at him.  Her neck is forward over her shoulders.  Her chin is tilted slightly to one side.  There is a slight gloss over her eyes.  She wants to kiss him.  This is the universal sign.  I recognize it, but only because I haven't seen it directed towards me in far too long.

9:23 p.m.:  A man and his girlfriend sit down to my right.  They are Monday night people.  They don't have anywhere to be tomorrow morning.  This is not to say they are have no concerns of money.  He's got too many tattoos.  She's got too much bleach in her hair.  Most likely they are night people.  I let my eyes linger on the bleach.  Tattoos notices I think, but he isn't drunk enough to do anything about it just yet.  They order drinks.  Nick the bartender finishes their drinks the same way he finished mine.  He gives the lemon rind three gentle squeezes and drops one each in their glasses.  As I sign my writing with every word here, he signs his cocktails with that careful lemon squeeze.

9:46 p.m.:  I order a second martini.  I had Oxley Gin once in a town called Aspen.  I had it on the rocks and I found it entirely enjoyable.  It tasted like gin, or at least what I thought gin should taste like.  I tell Nick about it.  He knows it.  He has another gin that is like it.  The gin he uses this time is called Damrak. It's from Amsterdam.  He finishes this martini with a twist of orange.  It's his signature with a different colored pen.  It hasn't changed, it just looks a little different.

10:03 p.m.:  I drank that martini too fast.  I eye-ball the bleach blonde again.  The man in the tattoos says something this time.  His tattoos are so angry.  I've crossed them and they demand satisfaction.  Bleach blonde looks almost as angry, but she can't hide her pride.  Her honor is about to be defended and somewhere deep inside she craves this moment every time it happens.  I'm wearing a white cashmere knit cap.  I think I must look like sailor.  Tattoos asks me to step outside.  I order another cocktail; bourbon this time.  Nick takes his time making cocktails so I want it waiting for me.  I tell tattoos that I'll fight him and then I have to get back to the docks.  He doesn't get my sense of humor.  He only gets angrier.  This is my sense of humor.  It's not for the masses.  He throws down a few twenties for his tab.  He doesn't want to come back.

10:07 p.m.:  We are in the alley.  We are in Denver.  It's cold, almost snowing.  I'm wearing a white cable knit sweater I bought in Uruguay.  Tattoos has something to prove.  He is going to beat me, but because of this he will never beat me.  He has thirty-odd pounds on me and my guess is that he is about five years younger than I am.  He throws his hands back and forth to warm up.  This isn't his first fight.  It's mine.

10:08 p.m.:  Fights are very slow things.  You can't rush them.  I know this even though I've never been in one.  He approaches me quickly, and throws a haymaker.  I slip it easily enough even though I am at least two martinis off a normal pace.  I counter to his chin, striking the first blow.  It's not that powerful.  Did I mention they martinis?  Those things are pretty much straight liquor.  I never got to the food I was in search of.  He backs up, and bleach blonde urges him on.

10:08:14 p.m.:  He approaches again, feints with the haymaker this time and follows it with a quick jab.  He connects with the side of my neck.  It hurts.  I'm a little more stunned than I'd like to admit.  He steps back and I catch the pride in his eyes.  He comes again quickly throwing two more jabs.  Both of them connect.  I hear a tooth crack.  I can taste blood in my mouth.  I spit some on my white sweater.  I stumble backward and he doesn't approach.  I see in his eyes the chaos of the universe.  It is swinging for me.  It doesn't even know me.  I take my sweater off.  It didn't do anything to deserve this blood.  I take my shirt off.  He looks back at his girlfriend.  He is confused.  It's cold.  I attack.

10:08:39 p.m.:  I throw combos.  I've done this before in class.  He ducks the jab.  I land the hook, but it's high on his head.  The cross connects square with his chin.  He steps back stunned.  I advance.  I try for the same combo, but he knows it's coming this time.  My pinky finger gets caught in his shirt and as he pivots around me, I hear it crunch.  He doesn't wait this time.

10:09:11 p.m.:  He tackles me to the ground.  He has understood now the advantage of his weight and he intends to use it.  He drives my shoulder into the ground.  Those tattoos on his arm express their anger.  He catches me in the ribs before I can roll away.  I make space and I kick him hard on the side of his thigh.  I hear him groan this time.  I haven't made a sound this entire fight.  He backs away again.  I pop up and start dancing back and forth.

10:10:22 p.m.:  He asks me what's wrong with me.  I don't know what he is talking about.  He seems concerned about the smile on my face, or maybe more concerned that while blood is streaming down my face and my pinky finger points akimbo I am still smiling.  I am in pain, but the pain is burning off something inside of me.  I feel it, and I smile.

10:10:48 p.m.:  Bleach blonde tells tattoos that it's time to get out of here.  Tattoos aquiesces too easily.

10:10:49 p.m.:  I catch the look fo disappointment on bleach blonde's face.  One set of her instincts has betrayed another.  She wants to protect, but more than that she wants to know she is protected.  I stare at her, and she looks down as she rushes over to tattoos.  They move quickly around the corner.

10:10:52 p.m.:  She turns to catch a glimpse of me as they go.  He does not.

10:15 p.m.:  I put my shirt back on.  I put my sweater back on.  There is blood on my sweater.  Poor thing, it didn't deserve that.

10:17 p.m.:  I'm back inside the bar.  I stop at the bathroom and clean my face up.  The damage is negligeabel.  Blood betrays the truth.  Nick is just finishing up my drink.  I take my seat.  He hands me the drink and notices my pinky.  I'd forgotten all about it.  I put both hands under the bar and I pull.  I feel it slide slowly back into place.  My vision goes white in that moment, but I am un-phased.  I bring my hands back above the bar.  Nick seems satisfied and he slides my drink to me.

11:04 p.m.:  I finish the bourbon.  Bourbon I get.  It burns on my tooth as I drink it.  I hope bourbon can cauterize.  Courtney has replaced Nick.  In the darkness, she doesn't even notice my face.  I pay my tab.  I tip graciously.

11:05 p.m.:  It occurs to me that life isn't about control.  It can't be.  It's just about how we fight.

11:05:39 p.m.:  I decide I'll just keep fighting.

R

Time To Say Goodbye

I did what I do as I drove home last Thursday afternoon.  I cried.  I knew it was coming, but it was still emotional for me.  I'm a crier, it's just what I do.

I have been severed.

For the first time in my life, I find myself laid-off.  Tomorrow morning at 8 am, I will not be going to work.  Instead, I will be here in my little warehouse somewhere off the interstate.  I am a raft of emotions.  First of all, I want to take this opportunity to express gratitude.  Thank you to all my colleagues at Local Matters.  I enjoyed working with you.  It was a crazy, two year adventure with plenty of a highs and more than a few lows.  To the executive staff, I would also like to say thank you.  I know that a job is not a right, it is a privilege.  I hope you all know that I did my best to earn that privilege.

Second, it's now about time to start looking to what's next.  I have many options, and a headful of ideas:

1.  See if I can intern with a famous restauranteur here in Denver.
2.  Spend some time in Montana.
3.  Ride my motorcycle some crazy distance.  Up the Eastern or Western seaboard.
4.  Spend a month in Central America learning to surf.
5.  See if I can intern with one of the pro sports teams here in Denver.
6.  Bust my hump and figure out how to get my dating site (agreatfirstdate.com) into the market.
7.  Become a male stripper.
8.  Or, I don't know, apply for other jobs.

The trick in life, the great challenge for me, has always been what is it I really want to do?  I have always been a mile wide and an inch deep.  I know this though, I am going to take this time as a gift.  I'm going to meditate, do yoga and run.  I'm going to do plenty of writing here.  I'm going to be ok being me.  That's always the best place to start.  If I get that part right, I know something great will come my way.

R

Another Moment to Be Grateful

I find myself without a proper home.  I am living in an old warehouse that was once a glass factory.  It is just off the interstate and it shares a property line with a marijuana dispensary.  I can open the garage door that serves as one of three entrances to my make shift bedroom and stare out over a yard of nothing but dirt and weeds.  The property is fenced in.  On every side, the fence is adorned with barb wire.  Every door has at least two locks, and the windows have bars over them.  It has no oven, no stove, very few windows and the floor is solid concrete which will always have a layer of us dust covering it.  My clothes, my kitchen equipment and most of my books are packed away in a storage unit far from this industrial warehouse.  

I am supremely grateful to be here.  

Those things I mentioned above really aren't that important.  I'm not sure the percentage, but this domicile meager by yuppie standards, is probably better than 90% of the homes in the world.  I have running water.  I have clean water.  I have hot water.  I have a roof over my head, and a heater that keeps me warm.  I have a bed that sits up off the floor.  I have safety here.  The bars and the barb wire are a remnant of a time when things weren't so good in this part of town.  I have high speed internet.  I brought my art along, and soon it will cover the cinder blocks walls.  I have music.  I have my motorcycle.  In fact, it's parked right next to my bed.  I have candles that give this place a warm glow, and I have a meditation pillow that is the venue for my twice daily retreat.  Most importantly I have a great friend who is letting me stay here for nothing in what is a time of massive transition in my life.  

I have a mission statement for my life.  It sits a top the list of goals I make every year:

"To unabashedly and proactively pursue everything I want while maintaining the highest standards of moral, mental and physical fitness. To consistently undertake risk and trust that universe will provide. To live outside my comfort zone and continually question my habits and assumptions so that I may learn new things about myself, the world and what is possible everyday."

I read my mission statement and I smile.  This is the kind of life, the kind of adventure, that I strive for.  So I'll say it again, I am supremely grateful to be here.  I mean that "here" in every possible sense.    

Also, did I mention that my motorcycle is parked next to my bed?  How cool is that?!  

R